CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: ONLINE CALCULATORS COMPUTE LOANS, LOVE AND BARNEY'S SALARY

Cybertip: Semissourian.com is adding a number of new features in the coming weeks. Already online are an Area Business section and a monthly calendar of events. We will also be offering beginning Internet classes on a monthly basis. Stay tuned.

OK we admit it. We don't do math, at least not very well. We're journalists. But the Internet offers us a little help with a wide selection of calculators, all kinds of calculators.

Some are technical and come from places like MIT. What's the point? They might as well e-mail them to their friends. Others are helpful and some are down-right wacky. We'll warn you, many of the addresses are long. You might just want to go to our column at SEMissourian.com and jump the hot links there.

The Kansas City Star brings us the Celeb-O-Meter.

kcstar.webpoint.com/job/celeb.htm

Joni: Here you can compare your salary with 20 celebs and find out how long it would take you to earn as much as they do in one year. For example, if your salary was $20,000, it would take you 20.78 years to make as much as Bill Gates makes in one year.

Peggy: But don't get too anxious about catching up. His net worth is estimated at $13 billion. He earns $1,138.57 every day.

Joni: That's nothing. Compare that same $20,000 salary to Barney. It would take 750 years to earn as much as Barney earns in one year. That purple wonder brought to you by public TV makes an estimated $41,095.89 each day. No wonder I'm broke and Barney's so darned cheerful.

Peggy: If you think Barney makes a lot, it would take 1,125 years for that same $20,000 salary to equal Deion Sanders' in one year. I can't take any more. Let's go to something more uplifting: The Love Calculator.

www.xs4all.nl/(tilde)kink/love/

Joni: Dr. Love believes that names tell a lot about a person. By using the love calculator, you can determine your chances for a happy ending. You have to enter your first and last name and that special someone. Yikes! I have a 55 percent chance of my marriage working out.

Peggy: Sorry, Joni. The calculator says my marriage has a 92 percent chance for happiness.

Joni: Don't count me out. I'm getting ready to celebrate my 18th anniversary next February. Will the Apple-Microsoft deal work out. Not according to Dr. Love. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have just a 28 percent chance of working it out. But then again, it's not an issue of love, it's a matter of money.

Peggy: Since I'm feeling good about my marriage, let's look at the life expectancy calculator.

www.retireweb.com/death.html

Joni: This calculates your life expectancy based on mortality tables. Peggy, you have 50 more years to go. I have a few less.

Peggy: Expecting a baby? I'm not. But if you are, you find an interactive pregnancy calendar based on the first day of your last period, conception date or due date. How about it, Joni, need to find out?

www.olen.com/baby/

Joni: Let's get back to a safer subject -- salaries. It's a relocation salary calculator. Compare the cost of living in hundreds of cities. Choose where you're coming from and where you're going.

Peggy: For example, if we were moving from Poplar Bluff to Honolulu, Hawaii. That same $20,000 salary in Poplar Bluff you would need $43,511 in Honolulu.

Joni: Unpack the bags. We're staying home and start saving for retirement. We found the Nest Egg Calculator.

www.firstandfarmers.com/nest.html

Peggy: You submit your age, savings to date, when you will retire, your desired income in today's dollars, etc., and it tells you how much you need to put away each year.

Joni: We tried several scenarios and we need to start socking away between $9,000 and $11,000 a year. We either need to live shorter lives or look at the want ads for a part-time job.

Peggy: As long as we're on a roll, a Danish roll, let's run to the calorie counter calculator.

www.caloriecontrol.org

Joni: You can find the calorie counter calculator at the home of The Calorie Council. Enter food items, with or without descriptions.

Peggy: Homemade chocolate chip cookies have 4 grams of fat and 68 calories each. This should mean the end of snacking at the computer.

Joni: Try not to get any chocolate on the keyboard. There are lots of loan calculators out there, both for cars and homes. We found one at

www.nia.com/homes/mcalculator1.cgi

Peggy: It's very simple. Enter the price of the house, the down payment, the interest you will pay and terms of the mortgage. Then, calculate.

Joni: Ready to travel? Let's try a currency calculator.

Peggy: Might as well go somewhere since we now know it is impossible to save for retirement.

www.DynaMind-LLC.com/services/utilities/currency.cgi

Joni: You can calculate both ways: how many pesos for dollars or dollars for pesos. If you have $100 that would equal 62.9 pounds in Britain. The calculator has a lot of choices.

Peggy: Traveling abroad with little kids isn't recommended, so let's consider fixing up the house instead. We found a site that helps you calculate how many rolls of wallpaper you need.

www.wallpaperstogo.com/home/home.shtml

Joni: You need to know the dimensions of the room, height and width in inches.

Peggy: If you know the cost per roll, it will estimate the total cost. Adjustments have not been made for large openings, like doors and windows or for large patterns.

Joni: That's just the start. We found calculators for paying child support, inflation, quarterback pass rating, golf handicaps, electric bills and even beer math.

Peggy: What's your favorite calculating site? E-mail us at click@semissourian.com

See you in Cyberspace.

Joni Adams and Peggy Scott are members of the Southeast Missourian online staff.